[WIP] - My TA re-modeling and re-design

[Warlord Zsinj]

As long as it's done intelligently, I've never had that happen, AF. Besides - what are dark shadows doing on a point where the sun is meant to be glinting? Or vice-versa?

[MR.D]

Thats why you use a combination of Glow and specularity, so its always a balanced brightness for whatever lighting the map is using.

Glow to keep it visible in shadow/obscured areas, and specular to give it extra shine when in full sunlight.

With glow, I use it on as much teamcolor areas as I can, so that those areas always stand out and are visible in any lighting angle.

Its all about preference, and how much work you really want to put into a model.

For me, its all those little things that add up to making a model from mediocre like my first ones, into one that is well balanced and better looking overall.

It takes time and experience from doing it enough and experimenting with all those layers that you start to see how it turns out ingame ect..

[Warlord Zsinj]

I never mix glow+specularity. I find spring just renders those areas as pure white, washing out any diffuse information that might've been there to begin with. If I have an area with glow, I'll deaden all specularity in that area, and vice-versa. This is especially important with coloured lights, as if you have specularity there, they'll just appear as bright white, instead of the colour you intended.

[AF]

Lets say you put a glint on your model texture and thus the reflections suggest that the sun si coming from the north west direction. Lets also say your model is like the solar gen but much taller. Now if we load up a map where the sun is in the south east and sits low on the horizon the shadows are going to be cast over the glint, making the sun glint in the shadows paradox.

As it is spring maps have highly inconsistent sun positions and lighting settings ( even if very few actually use them effectively )

[Warlord Zsinj]

Most textures face this inconsistency, and I believe the common tactic is to just ignore it - the potential immersion loss for inconsistent highlights is minimal compared to having a texture without any painted highlights whatsoever. Besides which, you can hedge your bets by ensuring that highlights are mostly facing 'upwards' and thus are covered 90% of the time. Also, specularity glints are almost always far greater then painted-in glints, so the painted glints tend to get washed away in those cases anyway.

[MR.D]

Of course it will wash out Zsinj if you put 255 specularity and then glow on top of it.. lol

Work on the shading so that each layer combined doesn't go above 200-220, that gives you alot of freedom between layers and subtlety and things won't bleach out the texture..

[Warlord Zsinj]

I'm aware that using 255 would white it out . In my experience almost any combination of specularity and glow will cause white-outs.

[Cremuss]

Thx for all the comments ! :)

Solar generator is released on my DL thread here

I tried to upgrade the specular map, and I've updated the Uv map because there was some deformation. Even if I still have lots of thing to learn with the specular map, I think it looks good now. Anyway I can't get better atm :)

@ Mr.D : Ha, didn't know that you was the author of this one :D. Yeah maybe the texture and the model is old but the design is still really good and more interesting than mine

@ Warlord : Ok, thx for the tip. That looks great on your model, I'll try to do as good as yours next time

@ MDV : Hummm, atm I just want to learn and improve myself. I've and I'll have a lot of time to spend to the spring project so I don't really care if a remodel will be useless or not I'll redo all arm buildings anyway

Again, thx for the coms :]

Next model, the keeper shield. Pics tomorrow.
I still have troubles to add colours on my textures. All looks gray

[Warlord Zsinj]

Colours aren't as important as contrast. Though in believable metal you won't find grey, you will find mixes of blues, reds and greens (depending on the metal, exposure). More important, however, is that some of your textures lack a clear contrasting design - they need light areas offset by dark areas, intelligently laid out to emphasize the geometry. Thing about which bits of the geometry you're trying to show as being cool, and which can be recessive so as to bring the more important parts forward.

Also, don't copy my work, Mr.D's / Smoth's is far better

[[Krogoth86]]

Hi!

I've created a script that lets the Annihilator act like it's known from BA i.e. you can turn it on/off and it will unpack/pack depending on that state and not shut down after a short period of time like it's now the case...

I think I also got the animation right in contrast to the "official" script - I think whoever wrote the script didn't realize that the antenna can fold too (at least afaik it didn't rotate downwards but instead the entire turret went enormously far downwards disappearing in the ground)...

You'll find the script plus a small video of the animation in the attachments...

[Saktoth]

Krogoth, your script does not work at all. It looks like it uses the same piece names as the old 3do anni.

Crems origional script is also pretty terrible it 'restores after delay' while still aiming.

Ill fix and this'll be in CA soonish.

[[Krogoth86]]

Well you must have messed up something then. I double checked not zipping the wrong cob but it's all correct. Have a look at what file you are editing / using:

The old 3do files used those pieces:
base, flare, case5, case6, case1, case2, case4, case3, plate1, arm, container1, container2, door1, barrel, energy, door2, plate2, radar, gun, turret

My script uses those:
base, arm, turret, gun, ledgun, radar, barrel, fire, antenna, door1, door2

So if you have the 3do parts in your "new" script you've done something wrong...

[Saktoth]

My bad, works fine, thanks Krogoth.

The script is half as slow as the origional though- it unpacks at half speed, aims at half speed, etc (fixed in CA).

And commited the solar, wind, fusion and anni to CA so you can check them out in the test version if you like.

[Otherside]

nice work crem

ur stuff got Ca'd

[Cremuss]

@ [Krogoth86] : Yeah, it's better ! Thx :) I'll edit my DL thread to add a link of your script. Also I'd like to have a bertha script for my model, I can't take an existing script because there is new pieces to anim. It'd be great

Cool @ CA ! I hope players will like my models

Keeper pics soon, I have some problem to resolv with the texture

[Warlord Zsinj]

Fusion looks fantastic in that pic

[MR.D]

Looks like a good set together there, can't wait to see more of what you got planned.

[[Krogoth86]]

@ [Krogoth86] : Yeah, it's better ! Thx :) I'll edit my DL thread to add a link of your script. Also I'd like to have a bertha script for my model, I can't take an existing script because there is new pieces to anim. It'd be great

Well allright but I've got a question:
What exactly did you want the "cooling" parts to react like - something like this?

[Cremuss]

Yeah, exactly ! Maybe with some smoke when it fires ?

[clericvash]

I think i need to start playing CA heh